Poker Perambulation

The HORSE table I was playing at FullTilt was a wild one and things were fluctuating. I was down just a little when the ad came up in chat for a 5K that was starting shortly. I haven’t been playing many tournaments and thought it’d be a nice change.

Here’s the spoiler: ended up going out in the low 300 with 180 paying. This was after about an hour and a half or so.

The early play was bad – massively bad. Harrington’s ideas aren’t making it into these $11 tournaments.

The worst of the worst was again betting. One fellow in the BB went all in against a limper and the calling SB. He proceeded to proudly show AA. Wow! A 1.5 blind profit and this was in the early blind structure. We’ll never know if he saved himself from a horrid suckout but we can rest assured that he minimize profits. You need to make money with good hands.

Another player with a large stack got sucked out on. He tilted and was all in shortly thereafter. Nobody called as he probably had 40BB left. He then flashed his hand. Presto! Fuel would be proud but flashing any hand tells people more about you than you normally gain. Another nice stack in the BB did the same act but with TT.

Tournaments aren’t about big stack poker. Taking on a race when you have a good stack is foolhardy. There are times when it works. They’re later in the event. The one table had a Aussie luckbox playing big stack poker. He played a lot of crap hands and had them hit when he was played back at. When I got decent hands, I played big stack with him. He’d come in for 6-8 big blinds as the hour was ending and that is an attractive target when you’ve a just below average stack.

I’d played pretty tight when I was in the SB against an aggressive BB. I had something like AT and just called. He popped it as I figured he would. The flop was rags and he bet. I figured he might have hit a pair but called. The turn was a K and I checked. He again put out a strong bet and I reraised. He called and I pot bet the river and got the fold. Playing blind on blind is dangerous. You never know when someone actually has a hand. He was shorter stacked and I’d have survived if he’d called. But, I thought there might even be a long shot that the ace could hold up.

About the middle of the hour, things went to hell. A player a couple of seats over was approaching short stacked and banged it from just off the blinds with me on the button with QQ. I reraised and he called. The flop was something like JT-rag. He bet and I moved all in. He showed AQ and proceed to river the K. A short time later a similar story of him being behind and this time rivering what became a 4-flushed board. And I was in trouble with about 15 BB left. He now had most of the stack I’d worked hard for.

A couple of hands later I had to gamble and got second pair – Q’s. The early position caller probably had something but it was gamble time. I moved and he called with A3s. He was in the lead and I the board brought the 2^nd Q. He went ballistic. Had he been paying attention he’d have seen the two suckouts against me or at least would have had he been paying attention. We had a fun exchange along the lines of:

He: You f-ing donk.

Me: My turn for a suckout, I guess.

He: I owned you. You S .. O .. B

Me: You had a 3 kicker speedy.

He: I knew I owned you. My read was gold.

Me: Why don’t you go to work for the psychic hotline instead of play poker?

Other: ROFL

He: You are the worst player at the table.

Me: Shallow praise but I accept.

He did get the last laugh a bit later when I got popped by the button holding KQ in the blind and the bet was large enough to pot commit. I should have just called and then bet the flop. But, I moved in and got called by the same hand (A3””but off suit) that he’d held and it held up.

Over the course of the tournament I was at 4 tables. Going back to my first remark: the betting was absolutely atrocious. Now, we’re all going to misbet hands. Trying to come up with the right bet against a player is an iffy proposition. What is wrong is overplaying weak holding and worse is overplaying great ones. Betting that exposes you as a pattern player is as dumb. Some players may make decent reads against others but have no idea of the reads they are putting out that can destroy them.

That big stack table captain was interesting to play against. I’d normally want to call him with a hand and then outplay him post flop. In watching him send players to the sideline, that was lost as an option. If he had any outs he was staying in the hand. So, I had to play him preflop. Those are the kind of things that come out as you pay attention to the action. And, very few at any of the tables were schooling themselves on the other player’s tendancies. You see a guy move on a better player that was saying he had a hand. That isn’t the time to bluff or push crap back at them.

People can’t lay down ’solid’ hands on a scare board. I saw a guy play 88 hard to the end with 3 overcards. He’d built his plan before the flop and couldn’t abandon it. That is a major mistake. If he was planning to be an idiot, he should have moved preflop and bought into a race. Post flop play takes more than a preflop plan.

So, I invested a couple of hours for nix. Was in fair to middling shape until the suckouts went the other way and I had to gamble. Luck ran in the other direction Sunday. That’s the usual results in a tournament. When hands don’t hold up you head for the next one with most of you self-worth intact.

ADDENDUM:

If you are headed for the WSOP, keep in mind that there will be other tournaments running. I remember chatting with Felicia last year. Glenn (husband) had won a seat in a freeroll for the big one and they were staying in their free MGM room for a week. She played at the Orleans and really talked it up. They had a very reasonable blind structure with mid-level buyins. You got a lot of play for the buck while the WSOP blinds were a lot worse. She said the room was full of middle level pros she recognized and it was very well attended.

Besides the Orleans, the Bellagio is putting on The Bellagio Cup III with buyins from 1K to a 10K WPT event. The Venetian is running its Deep Chip Extravaganza II with chip stacks starting at between 6K and 10K and buyins going from $330 to 1060. And you always want to hit Fremont at least one time with Binnion’s running daily tournaments in the $100 to $1000 range. Caesar’s is having daily tournaments.

Based on Felicia’s comment, I’d check out the Orleans website for what is happening while you are in town. There are a lot of ways you can cash on your visit outside the WSOP. The other tournaments around town should be hopping too. Visit the sites mentioned and plan accordingly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 5:36 am and is filed under Tournaments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.